The law against arbitrary taxation followed.  None but the immediate representatives of the people might dispose of lands or raise money.  Thus early did Massachusetts echo the voice of Virginia, like deep calling unto deep.  The state was filled with the hum of village politicians; “the freemen of every town in the Bay were busy in inquiring into their liberties and privileges.”  With the exception of the principle of universal suffrage, now so happily established, the representative democracy was as perfect two centuries ago as it is to-day.  Even the magistrates, who acted as judges, held their office by the annual popular choice.  “Elections cannot be safe there long,” said the lawyer Lechford.  The same prediction has been made these two hundred years.  The public mind, ever in perpetual agitation, is still easily shaken, even by slight and transient impulses; but, after all vibrations, it follows the laws of the moral world, and safely recovers its balance.

Appleton and Company, New York.

KING PHILIP’S WAR

From ‘History of the United States’

Thus was Philip hurried into “his rebellion”; and he is reported to have wept as he heard that a white man’s blood had been shed.  He had kept his men about him in arms, and had welcomed every stranger; and yet, against his judgment and his will, he was involved in war.  For what prospect had he of success?  The English were united; the Indians had no alliance:  the English made a common cause; half the Indians were allies of the English, or were quiet spectators of the fight:  the English had guns enough; but few of the Indians were well armed, and they could get no new supplies:  the English had towns for their shelter and safe retreat; the miserable wigwams of the natives were defenseless:  the English had sure supplies of food; the Indians might easily lose their precarious stores.  Frenzy prompted their rising.  They rose without hope, and they fought without mercy.  For them as a nation, there was no to-morrow.

The minds of the English were appalled by the horrors of the impending conflict, and superstition indulged in its wild inventions.  At the time of the eclipse of the moon, you might have seen the figure of an Indian scalp imprinted on the centre of its disk.  The perfect form of an Indian bow appeared in the sky.  The sighing of the wind was like the whistling of bullets.  Some heard invisible troops of horses gallop through the air, while others found the prophecy of calamities in the howling of the wolves.

At the very beginning of danger the colonists exerted their wonted energy.  Volunteers from Massachusetts joined the troops from Plymouth; and, within a week from the commencement of hostilities, the insulated Pokanokets were driven from Mount Hope, and in less than a month Philip was a fugitive among the Nipmucks, the interior tribes of Massachusetts.  The little army of the colonists then entered the territory of